Spending Saturday morning at the farmer’s market is a neighborhood tradition in my part of Chicago. We stroll over, often with dogs in hand and spend an hour or two picking out the best tomatoes or talking to the folks who bring “fire peaches” from Michigan or sampling the honey from the local cooperative. It’s a quiet time, relaxing with neighbors, catching up on the news of our little triangle of this great city. Aside from the folk musicians who play peaceful tunes while we sip lemon balm tea, the only sound is good conversation.

But not yesterday.

Not so high overhead, squadrons of fighter jets buzzed the lakefront. One boomed back and forth, up and down … swooping in for a simulated bombing run and the sound, the vibrations shook the ground … over and over.

It’s Air Show weekend – and for 3 days, we hear just a bit of what the people of Baghdad hear day after day.

As former war correspondent Colin McMahon of the Chicago Tribune wrote, the Air Show is:

Oohing and aahing on the beach while the very types of warplanes we were celebrating were inflicting horror on some good, innocent people—not merely on the bad guys.

Beyond all the debates of policy and timelines, SOFAs and Surges, beyond the rhetoric and “patriotism” there is a simple truth. That everyday people, people just like my neighbors, myself – today look with worry at the sky as they search their market for food for their family – but for them it is not a show and the bombing runs are all too real.

Someday, perhaps, we will learn to keep that in mind as we debate policy and politics.

News of the week from Iraq:

The director of water services from Diyala is reporting that they have received only 37% of the normal rainfall – and with the lack of electricity they cannot even use the normal irrigation – he reports that "agriculture has stopped."

The SOFA is back in the news – though now past deadline – will vague statements that it will include respect for Iraqi sovereignty and include withdrawal of US forces (or at least combat forces) on a timetable to be named later or someday or whenever.

And there’s an uproar brewing over prosecuting the Blackwater thugs who shot up Baghdad last September killing 16 civilians. The DOJ announced that target letters were sent, signaling potential prosecutions but Iraqis are demanding the right to prosecute them in Iraq.

Meanwhile, the contracting firms are scouring Fiji for more "recruits" to send to Iraq with devastating results for Fijians.

And the abuse of Iraqi detainees continues – with another "show trial" on the horizon. Apparently a number of US sailors acting as prison guards at Camp Buca locked detainees in a room, blocked the ventilation and filled the room with pepper spray. Amazing how it’s never the responsibility of commanding officers to make certain these things don’t happen.

Finally, Joseph Stiglitz & Linda Bilmes are the latest to join the Rahm "Skin in the Game" chorus of "we broke it but by god, those Iraqis better pay for it" anthem.

True, it was the United States that invaded Iraq, and none of the work we’ve done there since is adequate compensation for the five years of suffering that the Iraqi people have endured. But at a time when the U.S. economy is weak and our own bridges, roads and airports are in desperate need of repair, there is a real question of whether we can sustain subsidizing Iraq’s rebuilding on this scale.

On the good news front MAG, the Mines Advisory Group, which last week announced the clearing of 700 pieces of unexploded ordinance from Sulaymaniyah. Their work is extraordinary and worth supporting.

The video this week is Longing by Ahmed Mukhtar who remembers Baghdad “before the explosions silenced the music.” h/t markfromireland.